Articles

Doctor Who movie to be directed by Harry Potter's David Yates
by Paul Millar
(from Digital Spy)
Take your pick about where you'd like to read this news in full, as it seems to have made the world explode. Most of the reaction (on twitter anyway) has been negative: people either hate the idea of Yates being in charge, or they hate all the talk of it rejecting the TV series and "starting from scratch", or they hate both.
Most recently, official Who sources have taken to twitter to deny there's even any news in this: the film's been in development for years, since before the show's TV return in 2005, and nothing's significantly changed now.

First lab-grown hamburger will cost £200,000 by Duncan Geere
(from Wired.co.uk)
A bit "ew", but fascinating. This Is The Future 'n' all that.

Poirot to return for final series on ITV
and
Marple to return for three new films on ITV
by Morgan Jeffery (from Digital Spy)
Fantastic news for Poirot -- as they've been doing it for over 20 years, it would've been a real shame to stop with just five stories left. Plus we'll finally get a DVD box set titled The Complete Poirot that isn't a lie!
As for Marple... well, only one of these stories originally starred her! They normally do each series in blocks of four, but I've heard in the past that ITV essentially treats Poirot and Marple as the same series when budgeting, scheduling, etc, so clearly they've still commissioned eight episodes as usual, just distributed differently.

Secret documents reveal the flimsy case for Ofcom to give into BBC's public TV DRM demands by Cory Doctorow
(from boingboing)
This makes for slightly depressing reading. Essentially, the BBC and Ofcom ignored all the sensible advice they were getting about DRM and went ahead anyway, because that's what they wanted.

TV

Doctor Who Confidential
6x00 Christmas Special 2010
[Watch it (again) in HD on iPlayer.]

Poirot
12x03 Murder on the Orient Express
This seems to have come in for criticism in some quarters due to its focus on Poirot's religious conundrum. While I agree it didn't need to be made so overtly religious, when you're adapting a mystery where the vast majority of viewers know the answer, it's a good idea to find something else to hold their interest, and Poirot's out-of-character moral decision is certainly an interesting aspect of this tale. Personally, I thought it was all very well done -- hard and cold in story and shooting style, and so maybe not really suitable for Christmas Day (probably why it only managed 14th in the day's ratings) but still good.
(And if you don't know the twist, read the book or watch an adaptation, it's worth it.)
(And relatedly, I watched the famed film version close to this time last year. Coincidencetastic!)
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

By Any Means
Part 4 (of 6)

Friday Night With Jonathan Ross
15x04 (26/9/08 edition)
Three out of four of Wossy's guests were British comedians who've effectively moved to the US -- practically a themed show! Certainly, an above average edition, even with Jamie Oliver and Keane playing their nothingy new single (how much longer can they trade off having a couple of good tracks on their first album?)

Poirot
11x03 Third Girl
According to TV.com, there's a fourth episode in Poirot's 11th series. According to the Radio Times, this is the last episode ITV are airing for now. It must be said, ITV do very very odd things with their scheduling of new episodes of Poirot and Marple.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Part 2 (of 4)

Top Gear
11x04 (13/7/08 edition)
Hurrah for Dave!

TV

Doctor Who
30x02 The Fires of Pompeii [2nd watch]

#bbbDW50 sticks with the Tenth Doctor for a little longer -- we haven't exactly used proportional representation for the Doctors so far, and we're not really starting here (not with any great degree of accuracy, anyway), but when it came to increasing the number of episodes from the original 45 to a more appropriate 50, it seemed fairest to bung in a couple more for the Tenth and Eleventh Doctors rather than a whole extra multi-parter for any earlier one.

Fans will no doubt easily guess why Fires of Pompeii earns a coveted spot here: one of its main guest stars is none other than Peter Capaldi, the Twelfth Doctor himself! Except not the Twelfth Doctor. Probably. Who knows what kind of retconning Moffat will attempt. (Probably none. Hopefully none.) Surprisingly, he's barely in the thing.

The episode also features a pre-Pond Karen Gillan, caked in make-up as a glorified extra... and yet, after two-and-a-half seasons as the main companion, really obviously her. But that's not why I've chosen it; that's just a coincidence.


Have I Got News For You
46x05 (1/11/2013 edition; extended repeat)


Never Mind the Buzzcocks
23x12 The Doctor Who Special [2nd watch]
From Christmas 2009 and repeated last week as part of the anniversary celebrations. It's a great fun episode, actually... though four years on accompanied by, "wow, doesn't David Tennant look a surprising amount younger!" and "wow, doesn't Phill Jupitus look clean-shaven and therefore kind of chubbier!"
Bernard Cribbins is still just blinkin' marvellous though.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]


Poirot
13x02 The Big Four
Poirot finished forever earlier in the week, but with shocking tardiness I'm only embarking on the final series now. Though there are tonnes of earlier episodes I've never seen, so one day, with a DVD (or Blu-ray) box set, there's still plenty of new-to-me Poirot to come.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

Friends
6x02 The One Where Ross Hugs Rachel [4th or so watch]

Live at the Apollo
9x02 Episode 2

Poirot
13x05 Curtain: Poirot's Last Case [series finale]
A great final episode, and a great final story actually -- why isn't it one of the best-known ones? Maybe fans are too concerned with spoiling the twist (and rightly so), which has been the fate of Murder on the Orient Express.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

By Any Means
Part 2 (of 6)

Dexter
2x06 Dex, Lies and Videotape

Poirot
11x01 Mrs. McGinty's Dead
ITV may screw over both Miss Marple and Christie's sundry other characters by adapting them all willy-nilly in Marple, but Poirot sticks firmly to canon in its aim of filming all her stories about the Belgian detective. 61 down, 11 to go...

TV

The Job Lot
1x06 Episode 6 [season finale]
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player].

Poirot
13x01 Elephants Can Remember
And so the last-ever series of Poirot begins, funnily enough with an adaptation of the last novel written. Apparently the novel isn't that well regarded, but I thought it made for a good episode.
There are four more to go, but this being ITV they're not on weekly, so I hope they plan to screen the final one around the TV series' 25th anniversary, at the start of January 2014.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player].

TV

Little Crackers
2x06 Shappi 4 Todd
2x07 My First Ton
2x08 The Daltons

Poirot
12x04 The Clocks [season finale]
It seems daft to bung a season finale tag on Poirot, seeing as how ITV seem to show them in whatever order they fancy over the course of several years per series, but hey-ho, technically this is the last in the 12th run.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Simon Amstell: Do Nothing Live
Stand-up from the former Buzzcocks host. I identified.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Gavin & Stacey
3x05 Episode 5 [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

The Gruffalo
[#89a in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
[Watch it in HD (again) on iPlayer.]

Hamlet
[#90 in 100 Films in a Year 2009]
The RSC's award-winning version starring David Tennant and Patrick Stewart, here converted to a film as a Christmassy treat.
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer, and in HD from tomorrow evening.]

Poirot
11x04 Appointment With Death [season finale]
It's over a year since ITV last bothered to air a Poirot -- here, finally, is the last episode in the eleventh series. There's not only more already filmed (with one airing in just over a week), but more still currently filming.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

Victoria Wood With All the Trimmings [2nd watch]
Her 2000 Christmas special. The cultural references are technically a little dated, but it's amazing to remember the state of things a decade a go... including how little's changed.

Articles

Producer: Dark Knight sequel a mystery by Lara Martin
(from Digital Spy)
It's amazing how thoroughly "there's no news" can be reported, isn't it? (Note another silly article from the same authoress later in this post.)

Ross 'lining up Cruise for chatshow' by Alex Fletcher
(from Digital Spy)
"Stephen Fry [yay!], comic Lee Evans [never mind] and Scottish indie band Franz Ferdinand [meh] have already been confirmed for the first show back on January 23 [but] Jonathan Ross is reportedly lining up an appearance from Tom Cruise to boost his chatshow's ratings."
It'll be interesting to see how the show's ratings fare at the start -- will they be huge, as people tune in to see what he says; massively down, as people avoid him following the fuss; or just normal, because his fans weren't the sort who complained in the first place? Personally, I think the first or last of those are most likely, as the majority of complaints were by people who don't even watch or listen to his programmes.
Additionally, "Film 2009, also fronted by the star, will return to BBC One two days later" (source). Yay!

Suchet wants to complete Poirot series by Lara Martin
(from Digital Spy)
"David Suchet has revealed that he wants to continue playing Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot until he has filmed the novelist's "complete works"."
Revealed? Revealed? "Yet again reiterated" more like! Still, with only 10 to go -- and four of those being shot this year -- let's hope he can do it.

TV

8 Out of 10 Cats
10x06 (1/10/10 edition)
[Watch it (again) on 4oD.]

The People's Detective
Part 6 Poirot/Sherlock [final episode]
ITV3 are doing a poll to find which of their regularly-shown 12 detectives is the people's favourite. I'm not bothered by that myself, but I do like Holmes and Poirot, hence why I bothered to catch this one part of the series profiling all the candidates.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

By Any Means
Part 3 (of 6)

Poirot
11x02 Cat Among the Pigeons
I was quite surprised to see this episode was written by Mark Gatiss. Also, it starred an unusually high number of recognisable people, even for a Poirot -- Harriet Walter, Claire Skinner, Elizabeth Berrington, Anton Lesser, Natasha Little, Pippa Haywood, Katie Leung, and Miranda Raison doing a terrible French accent.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Part 1 (of 4)

Top Gear
11x05 (20/7/08 edition)
I missed the second half of this series when I went to America, and now I've missed one during the repeats. Dammit. Scouring Dave's schedules it is then.

TV

How I Met Your Mother
3x10 The Yips
3x11 The Platinum Rule
Picking this back up after a break over Christmas. E4 are now well into season 4, so there's certainly some catching up to do.

Poirot
12x01 Three Act Tragedy
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

TV

Gilmore Girls
4x22 Raincoats and Recipes [season finale]

Mock the Week
6x05 (7/8/08 edition)

Poirot
10x04 Taken at the Flood [season finale]
A weak tale, with a particularly implausible and unengaging plot. Also, the title is meaningless.

Would I Lie To You?
2x07 (22/8/08 edition)

TV

Poirot
2x04 The Cornish Mystery
2x05 The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim
[Watch The Cornish Mystery and The Disappearance of Mr. Davenheim (again) on the ITV Hub.]

TV

Agatha Christie's Marple
6x03 Endless Night [season finale]
Well, I found that to be a bit... slow. OK, by that I mean dull. It's not a Marple story originally, so she was somewhat shoehorned in; and the plot wasn't that engrossing -- there wasn't even a mystery until about an hour in! "Endless night" indeed.
There are rumours this will be the last-ever episode. Let's hope not. The post-millenial iteration of Miss Marple has never been up to the high standards of the Suchet Poirot, but it deserves more than this.
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]

QI
11x04 Knits & Knots (XL edition)

TV

Agatha Christie: 100 Years of Poirot and Miss Marple
Basic overview of the works of Agatha Christie. If you're a diehard fan, I doubt you'll learn anything, but it's a solid primer for newcomers — and, crucially, doesn't spoil any of the twists!
[Watch it (again) on Netflix.]

Leverage
4x06 The Carnival Job

Richard Osman's House of Games
5x107 Week 18: Tuesday
5x108 Week 18: Wednesday
[Watch various episodes (again) on iPlayer.]

TV

Doctor Who
37x05 The Tsuranga Conundrum [2nd watch]
[Watch it (again) on iPlayer.]

Paul O'Grady: For the Love of Dogs
7x06 Episode 6
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

Poirot
2x06 Double Sin
[Watch it (again) on the ITV Hub.]

TV

Beijing 2008 Olympics: Closing Ceremony
I'm still not convinced that the Chinese should have the Olympics -- apparently, according to some commentators, the human rights issues seem "long ago" now. Idiots. Anyway, it was lower key than the stunning opening ceremony, but in an of itself you'd never describe it as "low key". Best bit? Boris Johnson, of course. Boris Johnson is always the best bit. The Memory Tower was pretty impressive, though Zhang Yimou's work is somewhat undermined by his recent criticisms of the West actually having human rights. (Watched on the BBC, what with now being back in the UK.)

Marple
3x03 Towards Zero [1st half]
ITV's scheduling of its Marples and Poirots is decidedly odd -- it has at least four of the latter completed but unbroadcast (the last was shown about two years ago), while this Marple premiered in Canada in February 2007, but only just aired here the other week. There's another episode (Nemesis) that also aired in Canada back then, and in Finland (Finland!) in January to boot, as well as Australia, and probably others, which they still haven't scheduled for the UK. They're an odd lot at ITV... (Additionally, these are the last two episodes starring Geraldine McEwan, who has been replaced by Julia McKenzie -- perhaps ITV are just trying to delay the change-over?)

TV

Elementary
2x05 Ancient History

Friends
5x13 The One with Joey's Bag [4th or so watch]
5x14 The One Where Everybody Finds Out [4th or so watch]

Poirot
13x04 The Labours of Hercules
[Watch it (again) on ITV Player.]